WTO urged to speed up key trade negotiations

GENEVA: European businesses, growing frustrated at slow progress in the World Trade Organisation's Doha round, yesterday called for the WTO to speed up negotiations.

The WTO is holding a ministerial conference from tomorrow until Wednesday, but negotiations on Doha, launched eight years ago to open markets and help developing countries grow through trade, are off the agenda.

Instead ministers will review the WTO's work and its contribution to economic recovery and tackling problems such as climate change. Doha is likely to be discussed on the sidelines.

Economists argue about precise benefits of a Doha deal but political leaders and the WTO believe it would boost business confidence by removing uncertainty from the world economy.

"At some point of time all WTO members will have to make up their minds on the conclusion of the round," said Carsten Dannoehl, senior adviser for international relations at BusinessEurope, the EU business lobby.

BusinessEurope is expected to issue a call during the conference for the WTO's 153 members to focus on concluding a Doha deal, which would cut industrial and agricultural tariffs, slash farm subsidies and open up trade in services.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy says a Doha agreement is 80 per cent complete. But mindful of previous WTO conferences that broke up in acrimony, he wants to avoid submitting an incomplete proposal to ministers.

Political leaders have called on WTO members to reach a Doha agreement in 2010, but Lamy has said negotiations will have to speed up to meet that new deadline.

Members will take stock and decide whether 2010 is realistic early next year.

Poverty action group Oxfam said completing the Doha round would not solve all development challenges but would at least remove some of the worst trade distortions.

"The very fact that the Doha round is not even on the agenda of this week's Ministerial shows that the round is moribund," said Oxfam International representative Celine Charveriat.

Meanwhile, more than 3,000 demonstrators protested in Geneva on Saturday at WTO policies that they say promote poverty, but the march was called off after some 200 protesters rampaged through the city centre smashing windows and setting fire to cars.

Source : Gulf Daily News

RI supports UN resolution condemning Israeli human rights violations

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia had supported the United Nations Human Rights Commission`s resolution which strongly condemned the Israeli military assaults and human rights violations in the Gaza Strip, a statement said.

The resolution was endorsed in the Commission`s 9th special session in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday (Jan 12) with the support of 33 votes, 13 abstentions and one (Canadian delegation) opposing, a statement issued by the Indonesian permanent representative to the United Nations, WTO and other international organizations in Geneva received by Antara here Tuesday said.

Apart from supporting the resolution, Indonesia was also the main sponsor of the draft resolution which was filed last Friday.

Previously, Indonesia condemned the violation of human rights by Israel in the Gaza Strip and asked the international community to urge Israel to respect international and human rights laws.

The resolution, in addition to condemning Israel, also urged the Zionist country to immediately stop its military attacks in all its occupied territories in Palestine, causing various heavy human right violations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which had killed more than 900 people and 4,000 injured, including children and women.

The UN resolution also asked Israel to stop its rocket attacks on Palestine.

The statement said, the resolution also urged Israel to stop using civilians and medical facilities as targets of its military attacks, open access for humanitarian relief aid and pave the way for the media to enter the conflicting areas.

Israel was also urged to withdraw all of its troops from the Gaza Strip, end its occupation of Palestinian land and respect its commitment to the peace process particularly in efforts to setting up a sovereign Palestine with East Jerussalem as its capital city.

Other important points in the resolution include the immediate setting up of an international independent fact finding mission to investigate the human right violations committed by Israel against Palestinian people.

In the meantime, the Indonesian delegation stated that the international community could not keep quiet with regard to the escalation of the human rights violations and humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.